Hello Everyone!
Time for an update on what we have been doing! We are finishing our unit on problem solving and moving on to something new! As we move forward, we will finish a few odds and ends to show our learning.
Language Arts and Socials:
Students finished their mystery stories, showing excellent creativity and including all the important parts of a good mystery! Ms. D is going through them slowly and will be providing feedback. Students also had an opportunity to receive peer feedback.
We have been working to strengthen our writing skills through daily, fun practice of skills. For example, we are expanding our vocabulary and using creative writing techniques from the book Rip the Page, which provides fun ways to explore new words and expressive prose. We also have had fun doing Ian Byrdseed’s Grammar and Parts of Speech Party to practice things like conjugation of verbs, noun-verb agreement, and sentence construction.
For reading comprehension, and to connect with our recent unit, we read the book Seepeetza, and students appeared to enjoy reading the story aloud as a class. Everyone had their own copy of the book and we read along together, discussing new words and the history of residential schools as we went along. To show their understandings, students created venn diagrams comparing their life with Seepeetza’s, and they also answered questions about the novel on their e-portfolios.
To practice proper paragraphing and research skills, and to show knowledge about discrimination in Canada, each student wrote a paragraph on one example of discrimination in Canada. If anyone has not put this on their e-portfolio, please do so as soon as possible.
In December we enjoyed a great visit to the Museum of Vancouver to see “City Before the City”, an exhibit dedicated to exploring belongings, language, and the story of the Musqueam First Nation. We discussed the idea of reconciliation in connection with problem solving from our unit, and we had the opportunity to look at specific First Nations’ belongings, pretending to be museum curators organizing them according to categories of economy, community, and ceremony — three ideas that helped shape our discussion of what it was like in First Nations’ villages.
CSI Science!
We have conducted a variety of labs that provided opportunities for students to use science, critical-thinking, and observation skills to solve crimes, which was lots of fun! We learned how to document a crime scene and how to evaluate fingerprints, bullet hole cracks in windows, bones, dental impressions, and unknown substances to determine identities of suspects and victims. We did several labs that allowed us to discuss physical and chemical properties of substances, such as the Crummy Cake Caper, and we even used fire to determine the chemical composition of fibres from a crime scene! We also had a visit from the BC Coroner’s office, and three members of their team explained some real-life solved and unsolved missing persons cases.
Math
We continued to work our way through Math Curiosities, trying out a variety of real-life math conjectures, as well as interesting patterns, math optical illusions, and more. Each student is now responsible for making a mini math poster, Google Doc, or Google Slides presentation to explain one conjecture or pattern they particularly enjoyed. They will do some research on the topic, explain the conjecture and how it works, see if they can find out how long people have been working on the conjecture, and then use visuals and numbers to present their knowledge.
We have also been doing problem solving using Singapore Math visual diagram strategies from the book Word Problems from Literature, which involves word problems from Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other popular stories. We have also enjoyed doing word problems from The Book of Perfectly Perilous Math, which we solve collaboratively using a variety of math strategies. During all of this we have been discussing strategies for solving word problems: reading carefully, using visuals to represent information, documenting your thinking, being patient with yourself when you can’t get the answer right away, and slowing down your thought process to ensure you have considered all information.
Finally, we enjoyed doing problems from You Do the Math: Solve the Crime. Students worked collaboratively to solve problems, and then as a class, we went through the answers and did mini lessons as needed. These problems cover area, unknown quantities, coordinates, measurement, decimals, fractions, and more from the curricular content and competencies in math.
Art:
Before break, we were maker crazy, creating many cool items to either hang on the tree or share with others. This included some colourful wool creations, as well! Upon our return, we worked on the ABCs of Life, which is an alphabet giving advice to everyone on how to be happy. It is based on a print Ms. DeTerra has in the classroom. We voted on the words we wanted to use for each letter, which was a thorough discussion! Then we each took responsibility for different letters. Look for this to be on display in the school hallways soon! Coming up next, we will continue our discussions about elements and principles of art, which we began before break, and I look forward to doing some collaborative art with everyone soon.
PE and Health, French, Music:
We are monitoring our fitness levels in PE, competing against ourselves! Each time we meet, students try to beat their own times for sprints! Also, we have begun working on a drama unit, focusing first on different types of movement you can use to create characters. Our theatre games and movement exercises are noisy and chaotic, so they are best done in the gym! Starting Tuesday, we will be focusing a bit more on French, with the goal of developing sounds and basic words to have a conversation with someone who already knows French in the school community. More to come on this later!
In Music, students will be working on the recorder soon. Please see the gold notice that was sent home to order a recorder if anyone doesn’t already have one to bring to school to use.
Other News:
Our new unit is on MEDIA — I will make a separate post with the details that I am putting up on the board today.
No School on Monday, Jan. 28th for Curriculum Pro-D Day.
We will be having a student teacher join us for the short SFU practicum, for three weeks from Feb. 4-22. I will send an email to all of you with details. I am still doing the main teaching, and the student teacher will have opportunities to work alongside me for three weeks and learn, and to teach some lessons along the way. Please welcome her on Feb. 4th!
Field Trip Notices are going home tomorrow for our trip to the UBC Biodiversity Museum and Earth Science Museum on April 23rd, and to the GVRD Watershed on May 8th. The notices are going out early and at the same time because we need to pay deposits for these activities early. Thank you for getting payments and forms in by January 31st.
Learning Conferences for Report Cards will be from Feb. 27-Mar. 5, and our Student Led Conferences Event will be on March 14th from 2:15 – 7:00 PM. There is an early dismissal at 2PM on both Thursday March 14th AND Friday March March 15th. A notice will be coming to you on February 1st with more information so you can sign up for your time to come.
Thank you to everyone for filling out the field trip survey. We are going ahead with 3 of the trips, which includes the GVRD Watershed, the UBC Biodiversity Museum, and Dragon Boating on three days in late May/Early June. But we may not do the Deep Cove Kayaking as we don’t have enough parent drivers based on your responses and the bus cost to Deep Cove, in addition to the kayaking cost, is prohibitively expensive. I will be looking for another end of year option for us. Stay tuned!
Coming in Late— As a reminder, the doors to the classroom open at 8:50 AM and school starts at 8:55 AM. We have had a number of lates (so many I have regular stacks of late slips), and I want to encourage everyone to do their best to arrive at 8:50, which allows students time to get settled, find their seat, put away their coat, and not walk in when everyone has already started work. Thank you as always for your support!
Okay, enough details for now. Stay tuned for more information as we start a new unit!
